I spent some of the Easter weekend at my sister’s place at Copacabana (love the name of that place). She was redecorating her guest room and amongst all the books that she had pulled out of the book shelf were some old school magazines from RAAF School Penang. I claimed that the older magazine from 1968 was mine as I was in 6^th grade at the time and had stronger memories than she did, since she was only in 2^nd grade….she wouldn’t give me the magazine though, lol. Anyway it got us thinking about those days…………………

We first arrived in Malaysia in mid 1966 by ship. Our first house was in Robina Park, it was a new housing estate right on the beach front a couple of miles past the RAAF Base at Butterworth. We thought it was great, we could jump over our garden wall right onto the beach. The only thing about Robina Park then that we had to get used to was the smell!! There was a pig farm at one end and at the other end in the kampong they made blachan (prawn paste).

There were a lot of other kids in Robina Park and we used to get together on the beach and play stick in the mud (especially when the tide was low!!) and run up and down,dig for pippies. Some of my friends there were, Marlene Murphy, Anne McAleer, the Wilson kids. I used to run through the kampong to Tan Sei Gin where some of our other friends were. We were all members of the Dolphins swimming club and went to races every Saturday morning.

Being the furthest residences away from school we had to catch the bus earlier than anyone else and it was only just getting light when we left home. It took about an hour on the bus to get to school which included a 20 minute ride on the Ferry from Butterworth to Penang. The bus would park on the Ferry with the other vehicles, we had to stay on the bus, we hoped we wouldn’t be parked next to a truck with cabbages or durian or other smelly cargo in that tropical heat. The travel was fun though, I remember sitting with friends, singing songs along the way, laughing and joking. Oh my gosh…I remember my friend Ann and I had these song books.. we sang all these songs from the mid 60’s and I don’t know how many versions of ’10 green bottles’ and ‘no body loves me everybody hates, me think I’ll go and eat worms’ Ha ha ha!

After about a year my family moved to Pantai Rd, right in Butterworth. We then became the last ones on the bus in the morning and first ones off in the afternoon! Pantai Rd was great, we lived in a big old colonial house on stilts with a huge long veranda right across the front. There were only 2 or 3 other RAAF families in Pantai Rd, our other neighbours were European civilians working in various businesses locally. On Sunday nights we would go across the road to the ‘Tin Club’ for dinner, usually ‘Ma mei ‘or ‘nasi goreng’

Living in Butterworth meant it wasn’t as easy to get to the pool on the base, but I usually was there nearly every afternoon for swimming training, Tennis, Jui Jitsu or Guides, we were pretty busy. Sometimes I would catch the bus there.

I think I felt quite at home in Malaysia and our family developed friends outside of the RAAF. My mother spoke Malay (she grew up in Indonesia) and joined the Malay Red Cross, they would go to local kampong schools and treat the children’s sores.

We had some friends who lived next to the oil refinery at Prei, they were of Celonese descent, we played with the children and Jean who was my age was my friend, she went to a Malay/Catholic school in Butterworth. They had a fabulous cubby house that was just like a Kampong house made of ‘Attap’, and Jeans ‘Amah,’ made us sweet milky coffee for breakfast. They eventually emigrated to Australia.

There was a large group of kids between the ages of 11-15 who all hung out at the pool on the base and did swimming training and tennis etc all together. After races on Saturday we used buy hot chips with vinegar and a big grape fruit soda.

Some of my best memories are of hanging around the pool and the long ride to school on the bus, cos we got to spend a lot of time with our friends.

One of the girls from back then has put together a wonderful RAAF School Penang website ��� click here ��� and I just found out there will be a 50^th reunion of the school here in November, I’ll be there for sure!

My parents had a second posting to Butterworth from mid 1971 to end of 1973. I didn’t go to RAAF School during those years though my brother and sister did. I went to Boarding School and only came for Xmas and one other holiday each year. It wasn’t quite the same, though the experience of Penang etc was still very special.